THE JUSTICE OF 
RUMANIA'S CAUSE 



" 520 By A. W. A. LEEPER 

.R8 L4 "^ 

1917a 

Copy 1 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE a DORAN COMPANY 

P-ublishera in America for Hodder & Stoughton 
MCMXVII 



THE JUSTICE OF 
RUMANIA'S CAUSE 



BY 

A. W. A. LEEPER 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS IN AMERICA FOR HODDER & STOUGHTON 

MCMXVn 






MAY 6 1919 



Copies can be obtained from 

George H. Doran Company, 

38 West 3 2nd Street, New York 

Price 5 cents. 



I 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Historical Rights and Wrongs of the 
Rumanian Race ^ 

Rumania and the Cause of Democracy and 
Freedom 15 

Rumania's International Position ... 23 



THE JUSTICE OF 
RUMANIA'S CAUSE 



THE moral significance of Rumania's inter- 
vention in the great war has probably been 
understood less fully than any other important 
event which has taken place since August 19 14. 
Even among Rumania's allies, welcome as Ru- 
mania's help was to them, and well disposed 
as they were to give her their help in return, 
there was lacking adequate knowledge of the 
vital issues for democracy and freedom at stake 
in Rumanian lands. Among countries then 
neutral there was probably even less understand- 
ing of the questions at issue. For instance, in 
one of the foremost papers of the Anglo-Saxon 
world we find the following passage : — 

'^In at least two minor respects they [the 
terms enunciated in the Allies' Note to Presi- 
dent Wilson] are wholly immoral, in that they 
contemplate the seizure of territory that never 
belonged to Italy or Roumania in order to pay 
the bribes that these two eminently sordid 



2 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

Governments exacted as their price for enter- 
ing the war." 

{New York World, Jan. 12.) 

'Wholly immorar'; ''never belonged to 
Rumania"; "these eminently sordid Govern- 
ments"; "their price for entering the war" — 
let us analyse shortly the justice of these re- 
marks in the light of the history of the Ru- 
manian race, of Rumania's position to-day and 
of her future prospects. 



The: Historicai, Rights and Wrongs oi*^ 
THE) Rumanian Race). 

'What is "Rumania"? Who are the "Ru- 
manians" ? So many false and misleading state- 
ments have been made by partisan writers about 
the origins and constitution of the Rumanian 
race, so often a purely arbitrary and restricted 
meaning is given to the term "Rumania," that 
it is worth while to point out clearly the full 
and proper signification of the two names. Mod- 
ern "Rumania" is a term of barely 70 years' 
usage. Formed by the union of the two princi- 
palities of Wallachia and Moldavia, in 1859, the 
kingdom of Rumania includes only a part of the 
Rumanian race. Over a million Rumans live 
in the old Moldavian, since 18 12 Russian, prov- 
ince of Bessarabia. A quarter of a million in- 
habit Bukovina, which the Habsburg Empress 
seized in 1775. Small fragments of the race 
are to be found in N.E. Serbia, in S.W. Mace- 
donia, and Thessaly. But by far the greater 
part of ^'unredeemed" Rumania is still governed 
by the Hungarian Crown. Hungarian official 
statistics (1910) give the number of Rumans in 
Hungary as 2,949,032. This is a minimum esti- 

3 



4 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

mate. Hungarian census estimates are notori- 
ously "touched up." Rumanian writers show 
good grounds for the belief that there are at 
least 3,935,120 Rumans in Hungar)/', and prob- 
ably considerably more than 4,000,000. More- 
over, these Rumans mostly live in a compact 
mass in contact with the Rumanian kingdom. 
According to the Hungarian census of 19 10 more 
than five-sixths of the Rumanian population of 
Hungary lived either in Transilvania — of the 
15 Transilvanian counties, eight had a Rumanian 
majority of 64 to 89 per cent., four a substantial 
minority of from 35 to 48 per cent., while three 
(Udvarhely, Csik and Haromszek) were purely 
Szekler (Magyar) — or in the four adjoining 
counties of Krasso-Szoremy (72*1 per cent), 
Szilagy (59*1 per cent), Arad (57 '81 percent), 
and Temes (34 per cent). Rumania "beyond 
the Carpathians'^ is, therefore, a compact coun- 
try, geographically united with the kingdom. 

Unable to deny, while they seek to minimise, 
the Rumanian majority in Transilvania and the 
adjoining counties, Hungarian and other anti- 
Rumanian controversial writers fall back on two 
main lines of argument: — (i) That the Rumans 
are intruders of much later date than the Mag- 
yars. (2) That there is no "irredentist" prob- 
lem, and that the non-Magyar nationalities have 
no reason or wish to be separated from Hungary. 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 5 

The first is a much less important point than the 
second, and can be more quickly dismissed. 

To us modern Europeans and Americans it 
appears a matter of little import what nation 
has mediaeval or earlier history on its side in 
claiming certain territories. But Hungarian 
writers have laid great stress on the fact that 
their occupation of Transilvania, the Banat, &c., 
preceded that of the "Vlach" (or Ruman) 
population by three or four centuries. There 
are little or no contemporary records extant, and 
we are forced to speculate from such evidence 
as we have. All that is known for certain is 
that the Magyars did not begin to occupy Tran- 
silvania till the loth century. In the 12th cen- 
tury began the systematic introduction by the 
Hungarian kings of the Saxon colonists who 
built up the prosperous communities of Sieben- 
biirgen (Kronstadt, Hermannstadt, Klausen- 
burg, &c.). According to Hungarian conten- 
tions, "Vlach shepherds" only began to filter into 
Transilvania during the Middle Ages ( 14th and 
15th centuries), and are thus "intruders" in 
Magyar lands. Such a contention, however, does 
not explain who were the pre-Magyar inhabi- 
tants of the province of whose existence, side by 
side with the invaders, there are plentiful indi- 
cations. It does not explain the great number 
of place names of Rumanian origin. Finally, on 



6 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

this theory, it is quite inexplicable how, in spite 
of oppression and suppression for centuries, the 
Rumans of Hungary should now be in a great 
majority in Transilvania and the adjoining coun- 
ties. 

Neither Magyars nor Saxons make nor can 
make any claim to have been in Transilvania 
before the loth century. Rightly or wrongly, 
the Rumans do make this claim very emphatically. 
Ethnological and linguistic evidence supports the 
theory that they are in the main a blend of two 
races- — the original Dacian people of Transil- 
vania and Wallachia, whom Trajan conquered 
at the beginning of the 2nd century, and the 
Romans and Romanised Thracians and Illyrians 
who were partly settled there by the Roman em- 
perors as colonists, but to a still larger extent 
drifted in as traders and settlers. The sole cri- 
terion of nationality worth respecting is that of 
consciousness of a certain origin and tradition. 
This the Rumans of Hungary possess very 
strongly. The old Roman names — Traian, Au- 
relian, Octavian, Titu, Valeriu, Severin, &c. — 
are frequent amongst them. Almost equal re- 
spect is paid to their Dacian ancestry. In his 
tragedy, *'Ovidiu" [the poet Ovid, who was ban- 
ished to and died at Tomi, near Constantsa], the 
great Rumanian poet, Vasile Alecsandri, insists 
that Dacia was a worthy foe even for Rome. If 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 7 

history and historical consciousness are appealed 
to, there is everything to be said for the Ru- 
manian and very little for the Magyar claim. 

But let us turn from such academic arguments 
to contemporary facts. We have seen that in 
Transilvania and the adjoining counties of Hun- 
gary the Rumans form a great majority of the 
population. During the many centuries of Hun- 
garian rule this majority has been systematically 
ill-treated and denied its rights. In the princi- 
pality of Transilvania — both in its mediaeval and 
its Turkish (1526-1691) period — the Ruman 
population was denied the civil and religious 
privileges granted to the dominant Magyar and 
German population. When in 1691 the Habs- 
burg succeeded the Turk as the suzerain of 
Transilvania, the Emperor Leopold I granted the 
principality a diploma guaranteeing the continu- 
ance of its distinctive privileges. No proper pro- 
vision was made, however, to safeguard the 
Rumanian majority, and the result was growing 
unrest throughout the i8th century, culminating 
in the peasant revolt led by Horea in 1784 and 
the petition called "Supplex Libellus Valacho- 
rum" laid before the Emperor Leopold H in 1791. 
Maria Theresa and her sons — Joseph H and Leo- 
pold II — were on the whole benevolently dis- 
posed to their Rumanian subjects, but they en- 
countered every hindrance to reform in the close 



8 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

corporation of three ''nations" — Magyars, Szek- 
lers (racially one with the Magyars), and Ger- 
mans — who composed the Transilvanian Diet. 
It was their opposition which prevented Joseph 
II from raising the Rumanian ''nation" to the 
same status. But there was worse in store. The 
year 1848 with its universal movement of revolt 
inspired the Rumans to a great national demon- 
stration at Blaj (Blasendorf). In no sense anti- 
dynastic, this assembly demanded for the Ru- 
mans equal rights with the other "nations" of 
Transilvania. The Magyars took alarm. The 
Hungarian Diet had already earlier in the year 
voted at Pressburg the union of Transilvania 
with Hungary. The Transilvanian Diet was 
forced by the predominant Magyar element to 
do likewise, and the Ruman population had no 
means except by the demonstration just men- 
tioned to record their protest. The Magyar in- 
surrection and its suppression the following year 
annulled the Act of Union. For a decade, all 
conditions returned. At last, in 1863, the Tran- 
silvanian Diet agreed to the recognition of the 
Rumans as a "nation." But two years later the 
same Diet, under extreme pressure from Buda- 
pest, overrode the protests of the Saxon and Ru- 
manian representatives and voted union with 
Hungary. After his defeat by Prussia, Francis 
Joseph was compelled to agree to this as to other 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 9 

Hungarian demands, and in 1867 the Hungarian 
Parliament legalised and regulated the union. 

The half-century which followed has seen 
Transilvania under purely Magyar rule. It is 
true the great Hungarian statesmen, Eotvos and 
Deak, had favoured a policy of conciliation of 
the other nationalities, and the Nationalities Law 
of 1868 provided glowing promises of the fair 
treatment of the non-Magyar nationalities. Un- 
fortunately most of its promises have been ig- 
nored or deliberately broken. Hungarian has 
not only been made the official language, but is 
forced on Rumanian schools and churches. The 
Rumans can secure no teaching of their own 
language in the State schools, which they are 
generally obliged to support, and can only keep 
their language alive by maintaining additional 
Church schools at their own expense. Even 
these schools the Hungarian Government, espe- 
cially since Count Apponyi's education laws of 
1907, has been engaged in Magyar ising. Hardly 
a voice has been raised among the Magyars in 
favour of a fairer and saner policy, and in the 
Hungarian Parliament repeated and unanimous 
demands have been made for the enforcement of 
a ruthless policy of Magyarisation in defiance of 
even the limited privileges accorded the Rumans 
by the law of 1868. 

Politically, the Rumans have been almost un- 



10 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

represented. They have not even enjoyed the 
restricted franchise accorded to the Magyar pop- 
ulation, and the franchise is especially narrow 
in Transilvania. In Rumanian districts the elec- 
toral boundaries are drawn in such a way as to 
diminish as far as possible the weight of the 
Rumanian vote. The Rumanian elector finds in 
many cases that the polls are almost inaccessible 
to him. Not content with this the Hungarian 
authorities have resorted to every method of ter- 
rorisation and corruption — methods exemplified 
to the full in the last general elections of 1910,* 
at which the Hungarian Government pleaded 
that it "only" employed 194 battalions of infan- 
try and 114 squadrons of cavalry. Cynics may 
congratulate the Budapest authorities on the de- 
cisive victory obtained with these ''small" forces ; 
for only eight representatives of non-Magyar 
nationality were returned to the House of [413] 
Representatives, although — according to the 
Hungarian census of that year there were only 
10,050,575 Magyars in Hungary out of a total 
population [excluding Croatia and Slavonia] 
of 18,217,918. Exactly five members of the Ru- 
manian National Party (and two other non- 
Nationalist Rumanians) were returned, though 
on a proportional basis there should be at least 

* Fully described in R. W. Seton-Watson's "Corruption 
and Reform in Hungary." 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause ii 

sixty-nine [and as the Hungarian census returns 
are certainly falsified, nearer eighty]. What 
would the world say if the British Government 
only allowed four Irish Home Rulers instead of 
eighty-five to sit in the House of Commons? Yet 
the Rumans form between a sixth and a fifth of 
the total population of Hungary, whereas the 
Irish (including Ulster Unionists) are about a 
tenth of the total population of the British Isles. 
The Rumanian National Party has had to face 
many storms of persecution. Founded in 1881, 
it from the first pleaded for equal and democratic 
treatment of all Hungarian subjects, for the exe- 
cution of existing laws, the use of the Rumanian 
language in Rumanian districts, the restoration 
of autonomy to Transilvania, and the introduc- 
tion if possible of manhood suffrage. Failing 
to obtain any hearing for their cause, the party 
in 1892 attempted to petition King Francis 
Joseph directly. The Hungarian Premier pre- 
vented them from obtaining access to the Throne, 
and the publication of the petition brought down 
on the heads of the authors a long array of 
sentences of imprisonment. Undeterred by per- 
secution, the Rumanian Nationalists have con- 
tinued their struggle for fair and equal treat- 
ment. In 1906 they secured the return of 14 
members to the Hungarian House of Representa- 
tives, but four years later the Magyar authori- 



12 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

ties saw to it that the numbers were reduced by 
corruption and intimidation to five. Meanwhile 
the Rumanian press was systematically threat- 
ened, suppressed and sentenced. Between 1884 
and 1894 there were at least 40 trials of editors 
and journalists. Almost every paper in turn has 
been suppressed. Since 1914 the regime of ter- 
rorisation has been intensified. Papers like 
Romdnul and Poporul roman of Arad, and at 
least eight other papers which supported the na- 
tional claims, were suppressed between August 
I, 1914, and May 21, 1916. Others, like Gazeta 
Transilvaniei, have been taken over and used by 
the Hungarian Government. A long list could 
be given of Transilvanian journalists, writers, 
and professional men who have taken refuge in 
the kingdom of Rumania — headed by the poet 
and dramatist, Octavian Goga, who in one of his 
plays, "Domnul Notar,'' has admirably shown up 
the way elections are conducted or misconducted 
in Hungary. Rumania is at present full of 
Transilvanian refugees, priests, professors, jour- 
nalists and other well-educated men who have 
given up in despair any hope of securing justice 
and recognition of their rights in Hungary. Gen- 
eral Dragalina, who commanded the Rumanian 
First Army at the battle of Targul-Jiu last Oc- 
tober, but was killed ere the victory was won, 
was a Rumanian from the Banat, trained in the 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 13 

Austro-Hungarian Army. Since 19 14 the pol- 
icy of the Magyar Government has become in- 
creasingly intransigeant. Freedom of speech and 
action has ceased to exist. The Rumans have 
lost enormous numbers fighting in Galicia, in 
Russia, on the Isonzo. So the Magyars hope to 
"settle" the Rumanian Question by extermina- 
tion of the Rumans. Last August the Hungarian 
Government forced the Rumanian Orthodox 
Church to elect as its new Metropolitan a certain 
Vasile Mangra, who abandoned some years ago 
his national principles for the hope — soon real- 
ised — of preferment. Professions of loyalty are 
being extorted from the Rumanian clergy, teach- 
ers and parliamentary representatives, who are 
compelled to forswear their principles in order 
to protect their fellow-Rumans' lives and prop- 
erty. Recent debates in the Hungarian House 
of Representatives have, however, given the lie 
to these professions. In reply to interpellations 
the Hungarian Minister of Justice, Balogh, ad- 
mitted that a great part of the Ruman popula- 
tion had "traitorously" helped the invading Ru- 
manian armies. Balogh promised severe punish- 
ment of these offences. Already 1,000 sentences 
of imprisonment and 600 of confiscation of prop- 
erty have been inflicted {Pester Lloyd, March 
loth). Pesti Naplo recently announced the for- 
mation of a new and more docile Rumanian 



14 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

party under Mangra! Pesti Hirlap, of Febru- 
ary 14th, coolly informs the Rumans of Hun- 
gary that they are not a nationality, but merely 
Ruman-Magyars, and henceforth must all learn 
Magyar. So much for the Law of Nationalities 
of 1868! 



Rumania and the: Causk oi^ Democracy 
AND Fri:e:dom. 

We have seen that there are few better in- 
stances of a clear-cut issue between right and 
wrong, justice and injustice, oligarchic tyranny 
and democratic aspirations, than between the 
Magyar rulers and the Ruman oppressed sub- 
jects of Eastern Hungary. For decades their 
liberation has been the dream and hope of their 
brethren in the Rumanian kingdom. King 
Charles had hoped to attain their emancipation 
by friendly agreement with Hungary and Prus- 
sia. But his long reign (1866-1914) coincided 
with the increasing and unabashed persecution 
of the Rumans of Hungary. The hope of peace- 
ful settlement gradually melted away and every 
Rumanian was beginning to realise that sooner 
or later freedom must be won by the sword. The 
European War offered at last an opportunity 
which could not be lost. For two years Rumania 
was forced to wait — not in order, as has been 
ignorantly stated, to "rush to the succour of the 
victors" — but for the moment when, her own 
military arrangements improved, she could shed 
the blood of her sons with some hope, though 

15 



i6 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

at frightful risk, qf delivering her oppressed 
brethren. Even August 1916 was, as events 
have proved, too soon. But Rumania has at least 
played the heroic part of facing great risks and 
enduring great suffering for an ideal — the union 
of the Rumanian race and the cause of demo- 
cratic progress and national freedom. 

For the issues at stake were not merely Tran- 
silvania, the Banat, Bukovina. With the ques- 
tion of liberating the Rumans of Austria-Hun- 
gary and uniting them in a ''Great Rumania" 
was bound up the future of democracy and free- 
dom in Rumania itself. As we have seen, the 
Rumans of Hungary are socially and politically 
democrats. They are hard-working, intelligent 
and keenly alive to and eager for the progress of 
education and self-governing institutions, for the 
maintenance of which they have had to pay in 
money and tears. They are dour because they 
have had to fight a dominant race, and thrifty 
because only by thrift could they meet the double 
charges laid on them by the State and voluntarily 
undertaken by themselves to maintain their own 
churches and schools. Their incorporation in 
the kingdom of Rumania must be — and the fact 
is universally admitted — a great asset for the 
cause of progress and democracy. 

Political and social conditions in Rumania to- 
day are by no means perfect, and there are few 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 17 

Rumanians who would not frankly admit the 
fact. Rumania is politically a very young coun- 
try. The mediaeval State, in which under Turk- 
ish suzerainty the two Principalities of Wallachia 
and Moldavia had remained up till 1830, offered 
little chance of political education to the bulk 
of the Rumanian people. The country was ruled, 
in consultation with two Divans of boeri (great 
landed proprietors), by princes nominated by the 
Porte for seven years. From 1711-1821 these 
princes were generally of Constantinopolitan 
Greek extraction. Many of them were honest 
and well-intentioned, but the system automati- 
cally produced widespread corruption and un- 
just exploitation of the native inhabitants. Greek 
ecclesiastical foundations held a great part of 
the land, and the rest was the property of boeri, 
who held the peasant in a state of villenage, 
working for them so many days of the year in 
return for the right to enjoy a small percentage 
of what was produced. These peasants had no 
political rights. The revolution of 1848 intro- 
duced a new atmosphere of democracy, but the 
peasants were too uneducated to take advantage 
of the moment. It was Alexander Cuza, first 
prince of the United Principalities (1859-1866), 
who took the first practical steps to alleviate their 
lot. By arbitrary means he forced on an apa- 
thetic legislature laws reforming the land, fran- 



i8 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

chise, and education questions. The Church was 
largely de-Hellenised and to a large extent ex- 
propriated, schools were introduced, and a meas- 
ure of manhood suffrage was carried. Most im- 
portant of all, a considerable portion of land was 
given over to the peasants to hold in their own 
right. To save them from the clutches of usur- 
ers and land-grabbers they were forbidden by 
law to alienate their properties for 50 years. 
The period was up in 19 14, but the European 
War has temporarily lengthened it. 

Out-and-out Liberals have always felt that 
these reforms were not enough. To begin with, 
though the suffrage was universal it was not 
equal. Voters were divided into three colleges 
on a basis of wealth and education, and illiterate 
peasants were only allowed to vote through rep- 
resentatives of each village commune. The great 
peasant population of the country had therefore 
no adequate means of making its voice heard. 
Wise and good ruler as the late King Charles 
was, he inherited from his Prussian blood and 
upbringing an instinctive dread of democracy, 
and of the rule of the uneducated masses, and 
found in the three-college system a parallel to 
the far more antiquated and less justified three- 
class system of Prussia. Again the peasants had 
a legitimate grievance over the land question. 
As population increased, the land grants of 1864 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 19 

became more and more strikingly inadequate, and 
the unrest found expression in the peasants' re- 
volts of 1888 and 1907. It was generally recog- 
nised that the situation must be taken in hand 
before long, but party politics and vested inter- 
ests postponed a thorough settlement. Only the 
imminence of intervention in the war prevented 
a full discussion of the question in the parlia- 
mentary session of 19 16. The war has, however, 
shown that anomalies that might once be excused 
can no longer be tolerated. Not only Liberals 
and Conservative Democrats, but even patriotic 
Conservatives like the late Nicolae Filipescu, as- 
sented to the future introduction of equal suf- 
frage, for he knew that with it was bound up 
the Transilvanian question. On December 22nd 
last, when the Rumanian Parliament met in 
lashi (Jassy), the King emphasised the fact in 
his speech. 

^'The peasants should know that they are 
fighting for national unity in a battle for political 
and economic freedom. Their valour gives them 
still stronger rights to the soil they have been 
defending, and imposes on us more strongly than 
ever the duty of carrying through when the war 
is over the agrarian and electoral reforms on 
the basis of which this representative assem-- 
bly was elected." In an address to his troops 
early in April, the King reaffirmed the promise 



20 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

of "the grant of land and political rights." 
With agrarian and franchise reform is bound 
up the Jewish question. There are to-day some- 
thing like 300,000 Jews in Rumania, for the most 
part in Moldavia. They immigrated there in 
two big waves — after the Polish partitions ( 1772- 
1795) a^d after the Treaty of Adrianople 
(1829). Keenly alive to commercial and indus- 
trial undertakings, they soon absorbed most 
of the trade of the principality. Their higher 
level of education and business talent qualified 
them to control the whole economic life of the 
country. Add to this that their natural language 
was German, or Yiddish, and it will be under- 
stood that even quite fair-minded Rumanians 
might well dread and seek to thwart their tri- 
umphal progress. The Jews have accordingly 
been hampered and hindered in their civic life. 
While they have to serve in the army, they could 
not obtain commissioned rank in it — an unjus- 
tifiable disability to which Jews in the Prussian 
army are also subjected. They were prevented 
from entering the legal profession or obtaining 
any Government post. Heavy restrictions were 
placed on their residence in the country villages, 
where formerly they had owned the inns and 
taverns and acted as middlemen and moneylend- 
ers. Above all, in spite of the stipulations of the 
Treaty of Berlin, the Rumanian Government re- 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 21 

fused to facilitate for Jews the acquisition of citi- 
zenship. They could only be naturalised indi- 
vidually by Act of the Rumanian Parliament — a 
difficult and invidious distinction. Patriotic Ru- 
manian Jews have rightly resented these disabili- 
ties. Moderate and thoughtful Rumanian opin- 
ion is on their side. There is not the faintest 
doubt that agrarian and franchise reform will 
be followed by relief for the Jews. The lashi 
correspondent of the London Morning Post 
(April 7) learns "from an authoritative Ru- 
manian source that the lashi Government pro- 
poses to grant full political and civil rights to the 
Jews." Rumanian Jews have shed their blood 
side by side with their Christian fellow-country- 
men in this war. The Jews of Hungary, whom 
the Magyars for political reasons have always 
favoured, must find equal treatment for them- 
selves and their co-racials in the new kingdom 
of Great Rumania. With the extension of the 
franchise there will no longer be a danger of 
the Jewish vote exercising an undue influence, 
and Rumanian Jews will have a splendid chance 
of building up the temporarily shattered pros- 
perity of the country. The Rumanian peasant 
is naturally the most tolerant of men. In Ru- 
mania and Rumanian-Hungary Orthodox, 
Uniat, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, 
Jew, Armenian, Gipsy, Tatar, Turk live content- 



22 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

edly side by side. Moldavia and Dobrogea have 
served as havens of refuge for the various here- 
tics — Skoptsy and Molokany and other such fa- 
natics — who have in the past found life in the 
Russian Empire intolerable. Impartial observ- 
ers — including Jewish observers — ^have admitted 
the innate tolerance of the Rumanian peasant. 
Anti-Jewish legislation in the past has been due 
pre-eminently to social and political reasons 
which will no longer obtain in an enlarged and 
democratised Rumania. The Jew will be ad- 
mitted to the full privileges of the Rumanian 
citizen. In return the Rumanian Jews will find 
it both their privilege and their duty to identify 
their interests still more fully with those of the 
country, and rebut for ever natural, if largely 
unjustified, charges that they are in sympathy 
with Germany rather than with their Rumanian 
fatherland. 



Rumania's Inte^rnationaIv Position. 

The defects in the constitutional and social con- 
dition of contemporary Rumania, to which we 
have alluded, are the defects not of a decadent 
but of an immature political community. Like 
Russia, Rumania has not yet fully entered into 
the European heritage of which barbarian 
tyranny and lack of connection with the Latin 
and Anglo-Saxon worlds have so long deprived 
her. It is a frequent accusation of the press of 
the Central Powers against Rumania that she 
is a thoroughly decadent and disunited Power. 
(It is interesting to remember that down to 191 3 
German writers were accustomed to point with 
pride to Rumania as a splendidly organised 
State on the Prussian model, with its large 
German community and flourishing German 
schools.) The Bulgarian press is proud of con- 
trasting the free, democratic Bulgarian nation — 
the foreign policy of which recent events have 
shown to be entirely in the hands of its foreign 
Tsar and his nominees — with the Rumanian, 
composed as it is of selfish and corrupt boyars 
and an oppressed and unenlightened peasantry. 

23 



24 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

The Hungarian Socialist organ, Nepszava, has 
repeatedly declaimed against the medisevalism 
and feudalism and Byzantinism of Rumanian 
public life, and encouraged the Magyar and non- 
Magyar masses to forget their own grievances 
and vent their enthusiasm against absolutism on 
the public foe. Not very long ago the Prankfiirter 
Zeitung wrote a highly-coloured picture of the 
deplorable conditions in Rumania, and repre- 
sented the German conquerors as liberators and 
apostles of freedom. We have seen how much 
and how little justification there is for charges, 
which, even if justified, it would ill become Ru- 
mania's enemies to make. Rumanian political 
and social life is ultra-modern if compared with 
the reactionarism and oligarchism which obtain 
in Hungary. As for Prussia — in Rumania as in 
Russia, Prussia's best, if not her only, friends, 
were to be found among the very boyars and ex- 
ploiters of the people whom she so self-right- 
eously abuses. It is true that German capital and 
German science have powerfully helped in the 
development of modern Rumania — not out of 
altruism, but as a good commercial speculation. 
But what sympathy or help has Germany given 
to the growth of democratic feeling and cultural 
development there? It is from Prance and Italy 
that Rumanians have drawn their political and 
spiritual inspiration. From Berlin and Vienna 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 25 

they received little but trade wares, political 
loans, and diplomatic instructions. 

In Rumania's fight for freedom the economic 
side is not unimportant. Just as in Italy, just 
as in Russia, so in Rumania, German economic 
expansion, set in motion in the '8o's by Bismarck, 
passed gradually into political control of the 
country. Not only the trade but the finances of 
Rumania soon became predominantly the sphere 
of German banks such as the Deutsche Bank and 
the Disconto Gesellschaft. The Entente Powers 
apathetically allowed Germany to enmesh Ru- 
mania financially, and with German finance goes 
hand-in-hand German foreign policy. A Ger- 
man victory or a "drawn" war would mean the 
complete political and economic subjection of Ru- 
mania to the Central Powers. 

Like Italy, Rumania had no choice but to be 
the ally or enemy of Austria -Hungary. There 
were such acute differences between the two 
neighbouring States — over Transilvania in espe- 
cial — that they must be settled or postponed by 
war or alliance. The alliance concluded secretly 
in 1883 between Rumania and the Germanic Em- 
pires was the sole alternative to a disastrous war. 
As the Rumanian Declaration of War on 
Austria-Hungary explained, "Rumania," in con- 
cluding the Treaty of 1883, "saw in the relations 
of friendships and alliance which were estab- 



26 The Justice of Rumania's Cause 

Hshed between the three Great Powers a precious 
pledge for her domestic tranquillity, as well as 
for the improvement of the lot of the Rumanians 
of Austria-Hungary." In the course of three 
decades she found, however, that not only had 
she thrown in her lot with Powers whose policy 
and political principles ran counter to her own, 
but had not even by doing so saved the Rumans 
of Hungary from continued persecution. Like 
Italy, Rumania was not the sinner but the 
sinned against in the matter of treaties. Just 
as Austria-Hungary's Balkan policy, aggressive 
and pan-German, broke the spirit of the alliance 
with Italy, so was it also with Rumania. If again, 
the flagrant and continued oppression of the 
Rumans of Hungary could not be mitigated by 
friendly representations and political help from 
the neighbouring kingdom, then it must be set- 
tled by the sword. "The bribes that these two 
eminently sordid Governments exacted as their 
price for entering the war'' — to return to the 
New York World's criticism — were nothing more 
nor less than the demand that the Powers of the 
Entente who have proclaimed that they are cham- 
pioning the principle of nationality and the rights 
of small peoples should apply their general prin- 
ciples to the salient case of the Rumanians of 
Austria-PIungary. The States now fighting the 
battle of Civilisation and Christianity should only 



The Justice of Rumania's Cause 27 

be proud that included in their programme is a 
demand so clearly justified by history, by equity, 
and by common-sense. Grievously as she suffered 
for her ideal, Rumania, through the mouth of her 
king and foremost men, has proclaimed her be- 
lief that it was "worth while,*' and that she does 
not regret it. She has risked all for Justice and 
Freedom, let justice and freedom be her reward. 



RUMANIA AND ITS UNREDEEMED TERRITORIES. 




Kumanian equivalents ot Hundarian and German piace-n<mi»». 

Hermannsta<Jt=Slbiu I Klausenburtf = Cluj I Sejiesvar = Slghl^ara I Belenyes = Beiuj 

Kronstadt = Brasav| Karlsburg = Alba lulja IGnSswsixteindOradeaiyiarelSzamosujvar^Gherto 



LIBRPRY OF CONGRESS 



021 394 296 7 



Books To Be R 

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME 

"Mr. Buchan's account is a clear and brilliant prc_^. 

manoeuver and its tactical and strategic development through all four stages." — 

Springfield Republican, Illustrated. 12mo. Net $1.50 

THE CERMAW FURY IN BELCIUM ByL.Mokveid 

"Some of the most brilliant reporting of all times was done by a few quiet indi- 
viduals. . . . Among the men who did the most brilliant work, Mokveld of the 
Amsterdam Tijd stands foremost." — Dr. Willem Hendrik Van Loon. 

12mo. Net. $1.00 
THE CERIVIAM TERROR iW BELCIUM By Arnold J. Toynbee 

"From the facts he places before his readers, it appears conclusive that the horrors 
were perpetrated systematically, deliberately, under orders, upon a people whose 
country was invaded without just cause. — Philadelphia Public Ledger. 

8vo. Net $1.00 
THE LAND O/PEEPEWIWO SHADOWS 2??JS(l?^' ^y^- Thomas Curtin 
Revealing the Germany of fact in place of the Germany of tradition; telling the 
truth about Germany-in-the-third-year«of-the-war. 12mo. Net $1.50 

I ACCUSE! (J'ACCUSE!) By A German 

An arraignment of Germany by a German of the German War f arty. Facts every 
neutral should know. 12mo. Net $1.50 

THE REP CROSS IN FRANCE By Granville Barker 

The popular playwright-author at his best; delightfully introduced by the Hon. 
Joseph A. Choate. / 12mo. Net $1.00 

SOULS IN KHAKI By Arthur E. Copping 

(With a foreword by General Bramwell Booth.) A personal investigation into 
the spiritual experiences and sources of heroism among the lads on the firing line. 

12mo. Net $1.00 

BETWEEN ST, DENNIS AND ST, CEORCE ByFordMadoxHueffer 

A discussion of Germany's responsibility and France's great mission — ^with the 
"respects" of the author to George Bernard Shaw. 12mo. Net $1.00 

ONE YOUNC MAN Edited by J, E. Hodder Williams 

The experiences of a young clerk who enlisted in 1914, fought for nearly two 
years, was severely wounded, and is now on his way back to his desk. 

12mo. Net $0.75 
WHEN BLOOD IS THEIR ARGUMENT ByFordMadoxHueffer 

This powerful, deep-probing exposition of German ideals is by an accepted 
authority. 12mo. Net $1.00 

GERMAN BARBARISM ByLeonMaccas 

A detailed picture of the German atrocities — ^indisputable and amazing — ^based en- 
tirely on documentary evidence. By a neutral. 12mo. Net $1.00 

COLLECTED DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS 

The original diplomatic papers of the various European nations at the outbreak 
of the war. Quarto. Net $1.00 

THE ROAD TO LIEGE By M. Gustave Somville 

The work of the German "destruction squads" just over the German frontier. 
(From German evidence.) 12mo. Net $1.00 

MY HOME IN THE FIELD OF HONOUR By Frances Wilson Huard 

The simple, intimate, classic narrative which has taken rank as one of the few 
distinguished books produced since the outbreak of the war. 

Illustrated. 12mo. Net $1.35 

GEORGE H. DORAN COR^PANY Publishers New York 

Publishers in America for HODDER & STOUGHTON 



